if growing up is all about growing kinder
by novae mienai
Summary: Kayo visits the comatose Satoru. The snow outside has just started to melt. Oneshot.
She arrived at the hospital just at the turn of dusk. It'd been a few weeks since she'd heard the news, but the adults had all been too busy to drive her over until now.

She'd cried, when she received that phone call. Her grandma was out and the house was empty, so she didn't feel any pressure to hide her tears. She let them fall, no one around to wipe them off for her. Satoru's mom on the other end of the line might have been saying some comforting things, but Kayo, never having learned the warmth of a mother, wasn't really listening.

Her grandmother insisted that she bring him a bouquet. She held it in her arms as the elevator rose the seven floors to Satoru's room. It was early April, but the snow was only just starting to melt. She childishly wondered how they managed to grow flowers in winter, then she realized they must've been grown indoors, or imported from somewhere.

His room was bathed in the sunset's colours, his bed hidden in shadow. She placed the flowers on his bedside table and seated herself on the stool by his head, feeling slightly like she didn't belong.

She'd always felt a bit out of place when it came to him. Embarrassed, in a way, singled out. Satoru was a hero for sure, but she had to wonder, why was he so intent on saving _her_? Out of all the kids in their school, their town, out of the seven billion people in the world… He'd focused on her. He was a light, a spotlight shone on her, smaller than the moon but brighter than the sun. Looking at him now, unconscious, made her think of stupid metaphors like that.

His face was peaceful and his cheeks were full, his breaths coming in and out in a steady one-two; he might as well have been sleeping. But that was a stupid thought. There was nothing peaceful about what was in front of her. It was cold, and cruel, and lonely.

When asked about Satoru's chances, the doctors had three words: they didn't know. It would've been drastically different if they'd had certainty. Certainty that he'd live, and she would take her hand in his and maybe talk to him. Certainty that he'd die, and she probably wouldn't have visited at all. But whether he'd live or die was currently as much of a mystery as the identity of who'd rendered him comatose in the first place, and so the only thing Kayo could do was look at his expressionless face and imagine him smiling.

It was weird, thinking of him when he couldn't think at all.

Then, no, she thought, he was probably dreaming. Heroes were always dreaming.

She wasn't sure when, after that point, she started crying. Perhaps it was as she took his (soft, cold) hand and pressed it to her own warm cheek (it wasn't right, wasn't right at all that he was the one who was cold and she was the one who was warm).

She was crying, and his expression didn't soften with compassion. Not a muscle in his body moved to comfort her.

She once accused him of pretending. Pretending to smile, pretending to be nice, pretending to be worried, in order to fit in. But he told her that he'd never lie to her, and eventually she came to believe in him, believe that every smile and kind gesture he offered was genuine.

She wished he were pretending now. That his stonelike face and cold hands were a performance, and any minute now he'd open his eyes and say stupidly, "Haha, just kidding, Hinazuki. You know I'd never do that to you."

She suddenly thought of what might happen if he never woke up. The snow would all melt outside, she'd go to school and come home, do her homework, go to bed, graduate elementary, then middle school and high school, university, then get a job and all his friends would do the same, and he'd just be here, growing without growing up. (Though in the back of her mind, she wasn't sure how much growing up he had left to do, because if growing up was about growing kinder, then he was already the most grown-up person in the world.)

The world would spin on without him. And she would have to live in that world.

Could she really accept that world? A world where he didn't exist?

His hand was warm now, having taken heat from her own.

No, she realized. No, she couldn't.

She squeezed his hand, thinking of how much she'd changed; how much she'd grown up, all thanks to him.

* * *

a/n: cover image credit: 砂沙美, pixiv id 2174783

"I believed that growing up was all about growing kinder." —a line I really liked from the ED.

hello I just finished this show today and I dunno how to feel.

well I'll just post this and probably regret it in the morning, never mind it's already morning

I need to learn to sleep

thanks for reading, anyway :) justice for this pairing please


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